COEUR d'ALENE - They had to understand themselves and their shortcomings before they could build a successful Magic Valley economic engine, said Dr. Jerry Beck.

Beck, who recently retired as president of the College of Southern Idaho, said community leaders in southeastern Idaho became frustrated with their economic development strategy about 12 years ago.

"It just seemed like the way we were doing business was not working as well as it had in previous years," Beck told board members of the Lake City Development Corp. on Wednesday afternoon.

"Six or eight of us would jump on a plane and fly to some company to tell them what a wonderful place we were to live and that they ought to come visit and put their business there in the Magic Valley, but we were just not able to close those deals."

So they hired a consultant to look at their economy and determine what they could or couldn't be.

"What we found out very quickly is that they knew more about us than we knew about ourselves," he said. "So we thought that we probably better get a little more sophisticated than we were."

The consultant's report was "pretty disturbing" in what they couldn't do. For one, he said the area didn't have a strong air transportation system.

"If you die in Twin Falls, you are going to go through Salt Lake City whether you go to heaven or hell," Beck joked. "And you're only going to get a chance to go once a day."

Beck said that was a substantial blow on the downside, but on the upside, the region is within an overnight road trip to several western cites, which makes it an attractive location for warehousing and distribution centers.

The second biggest thing to come out of the consultant's study was that the communities needed to quit fighting each other and start working together to attract new employers.

"We did come together and we did sign an agreement," he said. "We asked for a three-year commitment."

That was the beginning of the Southern Idaho Economic Development Organization, or SIEDO, he said. The group is comprised of the regional utility companies, cities and counties in an eight county region.

The group developed a strategy to target specific employers and the criteria they would use to weed them out.

"They agreed they would only target companies offering a livable wage and full healthcare benefits," Beck said, adding the Magic Valley area was one of the worst regions in Idaho for employers that did not offer health insurance. "We would see people leave a $14 per hour job for a $10 per hour job because it had health benefits."

SIEDO members also agreed not to pursue retailers. They felt retail would follow the job creators, Beck said.

SIEDO then started forming "ready teams" for each community, and those teams were trained in how to deal with prospective employers, and how to present attractive offers.

"Keep in mind, those companies will always give you some things that they are looking for," he said. "If you had someone coming to visit Coeur d'Alene with 500 jobs and $38 million building, you would all want to be involved. You would all want a seat at the table."

He said SIEDO didn't allow that; the ready teams only consisted of four to five people who actually had to be in the meeting and they all knew their roles in the pitch before the meeting began.

"The reason I bring that up is because you don't have to be No. 1 in all of the areas. You don't need to be No. 1 in land cost, you don't have to be No. 1 in the building, you don't have to be No. 1 in cost for power.

"You can't be last. You just have to be good enough to stay at the table."

That's the key, Beck said. Always figure out a way to keep a seat at the table.

"We also came to an agreement that we had to support each other," he said. "This was the toughest part. If I had an issue with another community, I had to go down and talk with them and not make it a nuclear war on the front page of the local paper."

He said they had to work out their differences, and when they accomplished that, it was probably one of the biggest turning points in economic development in the region.

Beck said the community also developed a private organization called Business Plus, and they gather private money that can be used to incentivize business to locate in the region.

When SIEDO was recruiting Dell, the company needed $50,000 for a new generator, so Business Plus stepped up and they landed the jobs.

"Idaho doesn't have the incentives that a lot of our sister states have," he said. Seven years ago, he said, Utah looked at how much it was spending on economic development agencies and decided it was too much, so it eliminated those agencies and put the money it was spending in a bank and now it uses that cash to lure jobs into the state.

"That's pretty powerful," he said, pointing out the time a couple of years ago when Utah put $2.5 million on the table to attract an employer away from Idaho.

Beck said Idaho countered with an offer to train the company's workforce, but the company went back and determined it could train its own workforce for $500,000 and still have $2 million in the bank.

"Those are the things that we have to recognize," he said. "And we have to use what we do have the best that we possibly can."

He said urban renewal is one of those things.

"Urban renewal needs to be used anytime you can make something happen that would not have happened without it," Beck said. "I get very controversial comments back every time I say that."

In all, Beck said everyone in the community needs to be pulling together to become successful.